[Wikimediaau-l] Wikimediaau-l Digest, Vol 25, Issue 4

[John Vandenberg]

On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Daniel Bryant <dbwiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 4:04 PM, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Orderinchaos78
> > <orderinchaos78 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I've always said a Melbourne bid would be a good thing. I'd be happy to go
> >> over there and support it at a local level. What sort of conference
> >> facilities exist? (I'm thinking Arts Centre, Crown and Federation Square,
> >> but actual locals probably have better ideas :P)
> >
> > I'd previously looked at the University of Melbourne, partly because I
> > go there and am familiar with it (!) and partly because it's close to
> > the city,

Also, there are trams that go between the city and the university
every minute or two.

I am working at UoM on contract at the moment in the systems projects
office, so I have a few contacts that might be useful.

> > has accommodation available (the colleges are empty between
> > semesters and people can stay there relatively cheaply) and many of
> > the lecture theatres are already set up for AV.
>
> So the lecture theaters aren't being used?

The lecture theaters are under utilised between semester breaks, which
I think Stephen is suggesting as a good time to hold the event.  UoM
also has a lot of conference like facilities scattered around.

> Is UM the type of Uni who would support such a thing? (ie. are they the
> progressive tech-oriented types?) For anyone who knows the Adelaide-based
> universities, UniAde would most likely be less eager to support this
> compared to UniSA, as the latter has the whole progressive-tech thing
> happening.

I suspect that they will not leap on the idea if we approach them
directly while we are still merely a newly formed organisation.  They
are putting a new foot forward with the "Melbourne Model", so any bid
to that level of the University management would need to be targeted
to mesh into their vision.

http://www.futurestudents.unimelb.edu.au/about/m_model/index.html
http://growingesteem.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/86650/UniPlan2008.pdf

As they run like molasses, we would need people on the ground and in
the staff who are motivated, and bring them into the bid process
early.  Helping to start a "UoM Wikimedian club" would be a good way
to get the ball rolling, and help us determine the size of the
Wikimedia community who are on campus.

Ideally we want Wikimedian social clubs to be forming at every
university, as university students are a major component of our
userbase.

--
John